Ilona Bontekoning (22), The Netherlands

Background: Veterinary medicine student in Utrecht. During high school, Ilona participated in the WWF volunteer team in the Netherlands.

The Project: Ilona’s initial campaign of providing 'Green-House Warming’ packs to encourage energy efficiency with first time home owners, faltered because of third party links. Now working with her fellow Dutch Ambassadors on a project to encourage hospitals to be more energy efficient and to invest the savings in helping create durable renewable energy projects in South Africa.

Target: Busy reaching it!

Ilona shares her experience:
Q. What was the most important lesson you learnt at the College?
Ilona: Climate Change is a huge, global and especially complex issue. You can’t change the world in one day and it doesn’t help at all to scare people off by talking about the worst consequences of climate change. If you want to reach people that initially are not interested in climate change, you should make the problem easy and doable. Show people that they can do small, practical things and that it is fun!

Q. How are you using those skills now?
Ilona: I’ve learned a lot about climate change and campaigning and I’m still learning! I always try to make people conscious of the climate by pointing to small things in their environment and offering a solution. I try to make the subject easy and fun! I’ve learned so much about campaigning and communication by developing our first campaign so that our new campaign can only be a huge success!

Q. What advice would you give to others?
Ilona: As I’ve mentioned above: make the subject easy and fun. Get to know your audience and adapt to it: talk their language. Only then your message will reach them. Always being positive will encourage your audience to seeing climate change in a positive way. Enjoy the experience of the Climate Change College and talk with everyone who wants to hear about it!

Click here to read Ilona’s 2006 blog